Jenny Marx's Email Forward

When was the first forwarded survey? When did the first smartass fill in "sex: yes please!" and "favorite album: an album of family pictures I have" to universal mirth of his friends (the earth being young, and humorous humor not having been invented yet)? I would have guessed sometime in the early 70's, soon after the invention of email.

The Redcloud parents, however, while conducting their Cthulu research in some of their musty old books, found something that looks startlingly like an email-forward survey dating from the 1860's, written, oddly, by Karl Marx's daughter Jenny. This is true: she really wrote this, and made all her famous commie friends and relations take it. Some of her questions ("Your maxim") have a slight old-timey feel, but several ("favorite color", "your idea of happiness") seem just as modern and banal as anything you'd see in your in-box.

In order to keep this 150-year-old forward going, we L&E writers are all going to take the survey and email it to everyone we know. You should too! As an added bonus, next week we'll publish Marx's and Engels's survey answers, which are tons cooler and funnier than ours. (Engels listed his motto as "Take it aisy." Engels is the fucking man.)

Nate's Answers to Jenny Marx's Questions

1. Your favorite virtue: Courage. I can't imagine what it would be like to not cry like a little girl if some guy threatened to punch me.

2. Favorite virtue in man: Courage. I think it's great when some guy doesn't cry like a little girl when some guy thretens to punch him.

3. Favorite virtue in woman: Honesty. "Be honest with me, Sweetheart. Aren't my biceps wonderful?"

4. Your chief characteristic: Negativity. I think I have won many a person over by rambling on and on about what I hate about the 80's or the new Star Wars movies.

5. Your idea of happiness: A world in which Tivo did not have a monthly fee.

6. Your idea of misery: Being without Internet access for more than an hour.

7. The vice you excuse most: Cocaine use. It's just cute to me, I don't know why.

8. The vice you detest most: Liking Limp Bizkit

9. Your chief aversion: Large groups of people. Small groups of people too. Hell, any group of people greater than three or four.

10. Literary or historical characters you most like:

11. Your favorite occupation: Video game critic. If only!

12. Your favorite hero: Hercules (the Kevin Sorbo version).

13. Your favorite heroine: Xena (the Lucy Lawless version).

14. Your favorite writer: Kurt Vonnegut. That book where he drew the picture of a guy's butt was HILARIOUS!

15. Your favorite flower: Favorite flower? I don't know. The amethyst I guess.

16. Your favorite color: The color of all races perfectly blended into one rather sickly shade of light brown.

17. Your favorite dish: The one that I had as a kid that had Raggedy Ann and Andy on it and it was plastic. I accidentally melted it. That was a sad day.

18. Your maxim: The one with Krista Allen on the cover. Zing!

19. Your motto: I'm not going to play this game! A motto is the same as a maxim! How about this for a motto? "The difference between these two questions must have lost something in translation."